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Edinburgh theatre review: Rhinoceros at the Lyceum Theatre

This Scottish-Turkish version of Ionesco’s bizarre tale is fascinating and wildly stylish

Ann Treneman

August 7 2017, 12:01am, The Times

Robert Jack, second from left, has great comic timing as the everyman character BerengerTIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JAMES GLOSSOP

★★★★☆This play by Eugene Ionesco, written in 1959, is absurd to the point of sci-fi but it will also seem familiar to anyone living in our turbulent political times. It’s set in a French village where residents begin to turn into rhinoceroses for no apparent reason. At first, only one or two can be seen and there is much angst about whether they have one or two horns (one type of rhino is from the Middle East and the other is European, a description that seems suddenly sinister) but it soon becomes much more like an invasion.

The Scottish playwright Zinnie Harris, who is all over Edinburgh this year, has written this new version which has been produced in association with DOT Theatre, Istanbul. It…